The Irish in the British army

[Sheridan]

The war in Afghanistan removed a ruling regime more obscene and totalitarian than Hitler's.

I'm sure the Asian tsunami killed a lot of bad people too, let's celebrate that.

[SolitudeRed]

The war in Afghanistan removed a ruling regime more obscene and totalitarian than Hitler's.

Well that is true but Afghanistan didn't pose anywhere near the same threat as Nazi Germany did to its neighbours in fact it had no proper military to speak of really. Also there are a lot of brutal totalitarian regimes out there Saudi Arabia for example, If the US etc really cares about getting rid of dictatorships then they should attack all these other countries but somehow I can't see that happening!

[pete]

bad and all as the taliban are, i dont think they were quite on the same scale as Hitler..

Surely comparison with Nazi Germany isn't the standard set for intervention...

I would hate to think anyone would make a political point about a dead Mayo man from the British army.

[Poor Student]

I'm sure the Asian tsunami killed a lot of bad people too, let's celebrate that.

Did I say we should celebrate the war? I objected to the tone of the post which suggested that somehow invading and removing the Taliban from power wasn't a positive thing. While they didn't pose the proactive external threat of Hitler's Germany the people under their rule were subjected to apalling draconian conditions.

SolitudeRed, one has to be realistic about these things. It's not logistically possible to remove all the undesirable regimes at once nor does the political will exist to do so. I'd dearly love to see the Saudi regime taken down but just because that isn't happening it doesn't mean it's not good to see one rotten regime removed.